Williams, D M - Renegade Chronicles [Collection 1-3]

by David Michael Williams

  * * *

  As the five men left the ship, crossed the docks, and made their way toward the city proper, Klye looked around, making sure that no one was going to intercept them from ahead or follow them from behind.

  He tried to remain inconspicuous, not turning his head too often. Then again, he wasn’t sure if it was possible for them to be anything but suspicious. It wasn’t as though any other groups of priests were walking the docks.

  But the sailors and workers paid them not the slightest attention. Perhaps Captain Toeburry had told his men to ignore the monks. More likely, the tired, sweaty men were concerned only with finishing their work.

  Rum and women were on their minds, not priests.

  “Where to now, Brother Klye?” one of his men asked.

  Klye didn’t answer. Before leaving Stalwart Mariner, he had told them to let him do all of the talking. If anyone posed a question to one of them, Klye would explain that his fellow monks had taken vows of silence.

  “When Othello told us that someone had seen him, I thought we’d have to fight our way out for sure,” Plake continued. When neither Klye nor any of the others replied, Plake muttered something under his breath and kicked a stone.

  Klye surreptitiously studied the faces of the guards they passed, but none of them gave him or his men a second glance. Bored and underpaid, the pier guards would act only if the harbor were in obvious danger, Klye supposed.

  As they walked, the wharves and warehouses were gradually replaced by a dozen or more pubs crammed one right after the other. Judging by the pictures on their signs and names like Gambler’s Grotto, these establishments were nothing more than places to drink cheap ale and gamble away one’s pay.

  But Klye could see larger buildings farther down the road, establishments where a traveler could get a bite to eat as well as find a room for the night. Deciding one inn was as good as another, he stopped in front of an inn called Oars and Omens.

  “We’ll stay here,” Klye told his men, “but I want to meet with our contact yet tonight. Ragellan, you and Horcalus get us two rooms. Use the aliases we agreed upon.”

  Chester Ragellan nodded and took the small leather purse Klye handed to him. Although Ragellan, at age forty-four, was the oldest of the group, he did not bristle at being told what to do by someone almost two decades his junior.

  “Othello and Plake, you will come with me,” Klye continued. “It would probably be easier if I went alone, but Othello’s eyes may come in handy.” That he personally wanted to keep an eye on Plake, he did not say aloud.

  “I’d rather see the city than just sit around some inn,” Plake said, flashing a triumphant smile at Ragellan and Horcalus, who did not respond one way or another.

  Glancing around once more to be sure no one was watching them, Klye told Ragellan, “I’ll try to be back before the moon is fully risen. If we’re not back before midmorning tomorrow, you’d best get the hell out of Port Town.”

  Klye turned to leave, but then Ragellan seized him by the shoulder.

  Extending his arm, the knight said, “Good luck, Klye.”

  Klye imitated the friendly gesture, smiled, and said, “I don’t believe in luck.”

  Passage II

  The grubby, old innkeeper glared at them. One scrutinizing eye lingered on their brown robes while the other, which moved independently of the first, roamed first to the left and then to the right. Finally, he asked, “You ain’t spell-casters, are ya?”

  “No, good sir,” Ragellan replied. “We are humble servants of Gnuren the Wise. Ours is the power of knowledge, nothing more.”

  Scratching his balding head, the innkeeper regarded the two monks a while longer. The errant eye ceased its wayward journey and settled on a point far above the two monks’ heads. Ragellan imagined the master of Oars and Omens was recalling everything he had ever heard about wizards.

  True, he and Horcalus wore long robes, but they had neither the pointy hats nor such notorious oddities as eye of newt or pickled ogre toes on their persons, which the stories demanded from a proper spell-caster.

  Apparently deciding that the two men lacked the necessary prerequisites of wizardkind, the innkeeper chuckled—or coughed—and scooped up their coins. He then got up to fetch the keys to their rooms. When the man returned to the counter a few seconds later, he dabbed an old, frayed quill into a jar of ink and squinted his good eye myopically at the page. That other unseeing eye came to rest on the two monks, which Ragellan found more than a little unnerving.

  “What’re yer names?”

  “I am Brother Wade. This is Brother Armand.” Once the innkeeper had finished with his meticulous task of scribbling the aliases in his book, Ragellan added, “Three other monks will be joining us later. Please tell them where we can be found when they arrive. We will need three extra cots.”

  “Two rooms for five men,” replied the innkeeper, frowning more than ever. “That’ll cost extra, ya know.”

  Ragellan set another coin on the counter.

  The innkeeper swiped it up with a vein-riddled hand. “I’ll tell yer friends where to find ya.”

  The man then turned his full attention to the flagon of beer he had been nursing when they first walked in the door. Interpreting this as a sign their business was through, Ragellan took the keys from the countertop and wandered into the common room, which was heavy with the stench of sweat and spilled ale.

  The noise of a poorly trained piper and the shouts of rowdy drinkers accosted their ears as they squirmed their way through the throng of merrymakers, ignoring the many stares they got from people who had likely never seen a priest in Oars and Omens. Or maybe, thought Ragellan, they had never seen a priest at all.

  Finally, he and Horcalus emerged at the far end of the room where a wide stairway provided the only path up to the next level. While the second floor was far less boisterous than the one below, they nevertheless had to edge past a particularly amorous couple and an incoherent drunkard as they navigated the narrow hallway.

  When they finally made it to their rooms, Ragellan locked the door behind them and exhaled a breath he had not realized he was holding.

  “Brother Wade and Brother Armand,” Horcalus mumbled.

  Still leaning against the door, Ragellan opened his eyes to find his friend seated on one of the two beds in the small room.

  “That bed looks older than the one my grandfather made for my father,” Ragellan said, “but after sleeping in a bunk aboard a rocking ship for the better part of a month, it looks like a small piece of Paradise.”

  “You are welcome to it,” Horcalus said with a sigh. “I likely won’t sleep more than a few hours tonight anyway.”

  “I don’t think we will need to post a guard. We are as safe here as we can expect to be anywhere,” Ragellan said, though he knew his friend had meant something else.

  Horcalus rose suddenly and removed his brown robe in a single motion. He looked down at himself and barked a mirthless laugh. “We pose as monks, telling our lies anew every day, and under these scratchy robes are garments stolen from some honest family.”

  Shaking his head, Dominic Horcalus cast the shapeless mass of brown cloth to the floor and sat down once more, his gray eyes fixed on the worn floorboards at his feet.

  Ragellan removed his own disguise and regarded it for a moment before draping it over the edge of the bed.

  “It is true we have seen better days,” Ragellan began. “I don’t enjoy this deception any more than you do, my friend. I pray for forgiveness every night. I also pray for direction and guidance.”

  “As do I.” Horcalus sighed. “I pray even though I feel abandoned by the Good Gods above. Have we failed them somehow?”

  The question was rhetorical, or so Ragellan presumed. He certainly could not speak for the gods. But he knew had had to say something to his young friend and former subordinate. Horcalus had not spoken much during their flight from Continae—except when he was voicing a complaint—and he had said even less during
their time aboard Stalwart Mariner.

  After a short silence, Horcalus said, “I do not say this lightly, Ragellan, and I would not question your judgment, but are we doing the right thing?”

  Ragellan rested a hand on Horcalus’s shoulder. “The Knights of Superius, our former friends and comrades, thought beheading us was the right thing to do, but my outlook differs. We had no choice but to escape, Horcalus. Our only other option would have been to stay and be executed.”

  Just then, Horcalus looked as though he thought dying might have been the better alternative. “Someone has made a very big mistake, but maybe we could have reasoned with our captors or appealed to the King Edward himself. Instead we fled the continent with the very criminals with whom we were accused of consorting!”

  “Had we remained in Superius, we would now be dead,” Ragellan said matter-of-factly. “I am quite certain of that. This was no simple misunderstanding. Someone wanted us to die.”

  Horcalus glanced up at him. “But we did not have to come to Capricon with Klye and the others. I realize that we are in his debt, but would we not be safer far away from him? We could have hidden ourselves in Glenning or Shadrach or even Korek.

  “Instead, we are serving as accomplices on a misguided mission, traveling with a thief, a murderer, and a…a…halfwit!”

  Ragellan studied his friend carefully. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and calm. “I never asked you to come with me, my dear friend, though I have ever been grateful for your companionship. You remained loyal to me when everyone else was thrown into doubt. My oldest friends…the men under my command…they all turned their backs on me, but you tried to defend me, which doomed you to share my fate.

  “We are alive only because Klye Tristan was bold and generous enough to come to our aid. And while Klye doesn’t follow the Knights of Superius’s code of virtue, I believe he is doing what he thinks is right. He has turned his back on his old profession and is trying to redeem himself the only way he knows how.

  “You and I may not agree with all he stands for, but I, for one, think that Klye is essentially a good man.”

  Horcalus clenched his fists. “So we redeem ourselves by becoming the very traitors we were accused of being in the first place? We were once Superius’s…nay, Continae’s finest! We were Knights of Superius, Ragellan, and like my father before me, that is all I ever wanted to be. Now we’re no better than…than…”

  “I never asked you to follow this path,” Ragellan repeated with a sad smile. “We are in Klye’s debt, but that is not the entire reason why I stay with him. Neither of us wishes to cross our former allies in battle, but if we stay with Klye, perhaps we will gain a better understanding of the circumstances. We may even find a way to solve our dilemma along the way.”

  Horcalus’s expression told Ragellan how likely he thought that was, but the younger man’s countenance improved a bit as he said, “I have always trusted your judgment, Ragellan, and I shall continue to follow you and, consequently, Klye Tristan until my conscience can bear it no longer. However, you should know that if it comes down to it, I shall stab all three of them in the back before I stand by and watch them kill an innocent man.”

  Ragellan nodded. As much as he valued Horcalus’s company, he would have done just about anything to undo the past few months—or at least arrange it so that his loyal friend had not been caught up in the conspiracy that had landed them both in the Citadel Dungeon.

  At twenty-five, Horcalus was still so young a man and still so fresh a Knight. But throughout his twenty-some years in the Knighthood, Ragellan had learned many harsh lessons, but Horcalus was not yet prepared to even consider that the Knights of Superius—or the Alliance of Nations, for that matter—could be anything less than altruistic in its practices.

  All too soon, Ragellan knew, the idealistic knight would either have to learn to bend with life’s hard lessons, or the discrepancies between his blind faith and cold reality would tear him apart.

  * * *

  The three would-be monks made their way through Port Town’s marketplace. Portable carts and crudely built booths lined the widening street. The place stank of fish, but after a while they began passing better-dressed merchants, who hawked less odorous wares. Those men and women advertised such utilitarian items as hemp ropes, empty barrels, and plain earthen jars.

  Klye’s fingers began to itch as they approached a smithy’s stall. He eyed the blades on display but forced himself to keep walking.

  In order to make their disguises as authentic as possible, he and his men had abandoned their larger weapons before boarding Stalwart Mariner. He felt vulnerable with only a single dagger concealed beneath his robe. Despite his lack of recent practice, he knew he could lift at least several more knives and possibly a sword without getting caught.

  Tearing his gaze from the source of temptation, Klye trained his eyes forward, focusing on the white stone monolith that towered above the rest of the city. At the same time, he was taking in everything that was going on around them out the corner of his eye.

  Though he wanted to get to the Cathedral as quickly as possible, he nevertheless stopped occasionally to admire this merchant’s straw goods and that one’s jewelry. Instinctively, Klye kept his ears open, too, picking up fragments of conversations as he, Plake, and Othello meandered through the market.

  It was all reflexive: seeing more than you appeared to see, hearing more than you were meant to hear.

  When he noticed a pair of true clerics in robes of silvery white, bargaining at a booth that sold ink, Klye was quick to cross to the other side of the street. He supposed that the priests had come from Aladon’s Cathedral but had no way of knowing for sure. Anyway, he would not risk talking to them, even though it might make their task easier. Better to keep encounters at a minimum.

  And, in Klye’s mind, avoiding the clergy of any faith was usually a good idea, especially when you were impersonating a man of the cloth yourself.

  Klye quickened his pace. He had no fear of losing Othello. Back in Continae, the archer had proven that his eyesight was as sharp as any arrow. With his long legs, Othello was far more likely to outpace Klye than the other way around.

  Plake, on the other hand…

  Klye glanced over his shoulder. The younger man remained a few paces behind, wearing an annoyed look on his face. Now, Plake Nelway was not a child—he was in his early twenties, Klye’s junior by only a few years—but Plake was undeniably the least mature of the group. If Plake had wandered off, for whatever reason, Klye wondered if he would have bothered looking for him. In all likelihood, Klye would be better off if Plake quit the group as capriciously as he had joined it.

  With the marketplace at their backs, they were surrounded on either side by rows of single-story houses, the upkeep of which improved the farther inland they walked. The Cathedral remained directly in front of them, though it was not so far in the distance now.

  By Klye’s estimations, they would reach the church in a few minutes. He took that time to mull over some of the things he had heard in the marketplace. Most of the chatter had been useless conversations about personal matters, but Klye had overheard some things of interest.

  Many of Port Town’s citizens were whispering about the local band of Renegades, including Leslie Beryl, their leader and the mayor’s own daughter. Some speculated that Leslie was a double agent while others claimed that Mayor Beryl himself was the true traitor in Port Town. He had heard one middle-aged woman confiding to a friend that there were pirates in the area.

  Pirates…hadn’t Captain Toeburry said something about pirates? he thought.

  Not that it mattered much to Klye. He didn’t plan to stay long in Port Town.

  Most of the talk about the Renegades had been pure speculation, but at least Klye had been able to confirm a few of the things he had heard back in Continae.

  To his relief, he had not heard a word about Chester Ragellan’s and Dominic Horcalus’s recent escape from the Citadel Dungeo
n. Klye could only hope that the news hadn’t reached the island yet.

  The road came to an abrupt end at an intersection with no less than six other avenues from which to choose. Klye had no need for any of them. Now that he was standing before the Cathedral, Klye saw that it for the architectural marvel it truly was.

  From what he had learned in Port Alexis, this church was the largest temple dedicated to the god Aladon in all of Continae and its territories. Come to think of it, Klye didn’t know of any other Aladon churches, and he had practically traveled from one end of Continae to the other following the jailbreak at the Citadel Dungeon.

  Those in Port Alexis had also told him that the Cathedral was a place of pilgrimage for Aladon’s followers. Most humans regarded Aladon as the elves’ god, preferring to worship the other Gods of Good, Pintor in particular. Although Klye had no use for any religion, he knew he was far more likely to run across a shrine dedicated to Tristana or Feol—lesser deities to be sure—than to find an Aladon church in Superius.

  But he had been told that the people of western Capricon had taken to Aladon long before Superius had purchased the island from Glenning, which had happened long before the Confederacy of Continae came into being.

  History wasn’t one of his favorite topics, but one never knew when some random bit of knowledge would come in handy.

  From its archaic appearance, Klye did not doubt that Aladon’s Cathedral had been there for some time. It looked out of place among the simple homes that had sprouted up around it. The smaller structures were ordinary and dull in comparison to the Cathedral, which was covered in woodcarvings and stone statues of men and elves alike. Stained-glass windows stretched from the ground floor up to the tall spires.

  Klye knew he was not an easy man to impress, but he did feel a little awed by the place, if for no other reason than the amount of work and time that the builders had put into constructing it. Unlike the Citadel Dungeon, which had also been of mammoth size, Aladon’s Cathedral was a pleasure to behold.